Charles Leclerc Has Defended Ferrari Team Strategy And Orders Seen In Spain

To many fans and pundits concerned with the sport, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc is a fine revelation. Right from the start of the race season at Australia to his efforts at Bahrain, where he nearly won the contest, to going all the way toward setting the fastest lap at Azerbaijan, Charles Leclerc has both entertained and impressed.

There are very few out there who aren’t impressed with a driver who believes in himself, someone whose craft expresses that long-standing passion that perhaps Ferrari were looking for.

Credits: Daily Express

But recently, in Spain, he was seen struggling in a scenario that sort of reminded one of his struggles with Vettel at the Chinese Grand Prix, where both drivers in red cars were sort of caught up in a battle to outdo each other. This was both surprising and a tad bit unexpected for the simple reason that one expected them to have been engrossed in catching those in front, instead of playing catch-up among themselves.

Furthermore, the decision for Ferrari to deploy team-orders in Spain, not that the scenario hasn’t been seen earlier, was met with much derision and polarising opinions.

To that end, what may come as a bit of a surprise to some at least is that Charles Leclerc has defended the use of Ferrari’s team orders, stating the fact that he had ‘absolutely no problems’ with those.

At Spain, one saw Leclerc struggling a bit early on in the 66-lap contest before he’d reach Sebastian Vettel close enough to attack the driver, who began from third, in much closer proximity. A strange battle would then persist from the onset of lap 8 to 12 that would see Leclerc perhaps being held by his teammate, as per the observations of most commentating the race.

So what exactly was Charles Leclerc hinting at and why does he think that the team order occurrence in Spain was fine or ‘justified’ as one may put it? Well, here’s what we ought to know?

Speaking to the media recently upon the conclusion of the 2019 Spanish Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc happened to share the following:

“For now in this race, I think there was absolutely no problems for me,” Leclerc said. “Obviously in the first stint I was quicker but it is always difficult when there is a driver behind that tells you he is quicker. You always want to be ahead.

“Again after that, they let me past and I could make my race and after that, we swapped again when I was struggling.

“I don’t think it was a bad call as we wanted to get to the end of the race with them [the hard tyres] but unfortunately we didn’t make them work as expected.”